Peace Update: PHL gov't offers MILF "enhanced autonomy" (economic dev't & gov't recognition of Bangsamoros' historical ties to the land)

Frustration grows for Philippine Muslim rebels: "There are roughly four million Muslims in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, an area they see as their ancestral homeland dating back to Islamic sultanates established long before Spanish Christians arrived in the 1500s.

The region is among the most fertile and resource-rich in the Philippines, but it is also one of the country's poorest and undeveloped, a legacy of the conflict that began four decades ago.

Muslims, known as Bangsamoro, are now a minority in Mindanao but insist they should be allowed to largely govern the region themselves and control its potential riches.

The MILF, the largest Muslim rebel group with about 12,000 soldiers, has for the past decade sought to negotiate a settlement rather than achieve its aims through armed insurgency, which peaked in the 1970s when an all-out war raged."
Note: The Philippine government insists on using the constitutional framework to address the Bangsamoro problem. But the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is insisting that what they want is a substate
'via Blog this'